Using GIS

Using GIS has all the advantages of a management information system (MIS) coupled with the visual representation of data – remember that a picture tells a thousand words. Hence, using GIS as a management and analytical system is very powerful.

The question is “who should use GIS?” The answer is simple – everyone should!

Everyone has some form of location dependence within the management and analyses of their activities – whether business or recreational. Such location dependence gives rise to spatial and attribute data to manage sales, resources, productivity and to analyse product consumption by consumers amongst many other company activities within business. In a recreational environment, GIS is useful for finding your way when coupled with GPS, analysing race routes for a marathon and identifying preferred scuba diving or fishing locations to name a few.

Basically, everyone has a need and use for GIS – its just the extent that may vary.

Everyday uses of GIS that effect us

Some you know of and some you didn’t even suspect – but we are all influenced by GIS. Here are some examples:

1. Vehicle Tracking: this is one GIS service offered to create security and peace of mind that your car is where you left it. GIS is used for more than protecting your vehicle & is implemented by policing and security organisations worldwide to prevent crime and manage area security.

2. Courier Services: you enjoy knowing where your package is located while on route – again GIS helping you but also helping your courier company manage the logistics of moving your parcel along with all the others they handle.

3. You drive to work! Road infrastructure planning, maintenance & traffic monitoring is governed by GIS in most countries.

4. You receive your newspaper subscription – the wood used to produce the paper used for your newspaper was carefully managed by forestry companies to ensure optimum tree growth, management of environmental impact and to maintain safe forestry practices.

The uses and impact of GIS is so extensive that possible examples of our use can be related to almost all our daily activities.

2 Responses to Using GIS

They still have balls as big as an elephant to chgare 1000-1500.00 to get into the user conference each year! What are they thinking??? They no longer have a monopoly! Lets screw the users and tax payers one more time, because the tax payers don’t know about it. Ask yourself who is paying for most of these junket passes the government. ESRI needs to open up the user conference and get as many young people as they can interested in their software and gis. A 40.00 dollar entrance fee is what it should be! You are NOT going to get new users by overcharging the attendees, and most are old time city and municipality workers that would not be going if the tax payers knew the entrance price they get stuck with!Also, the map wars are currently heating up with Apple and Google. Both may insert a lot of new gis tools in their mapping programs and ESRI is acting like Microsoft. Their apps suck and do nothing and their software is not intuitive and friendly like a lot of the new open source programs.I will NEVER update to 10, since I need a stable platform and can’t afford one crash. And they have never added any of my update requests to the software. What they did add, others do better! Plus they are not making the interface any friendlier and are STILL nickel and diming users with overpriced extensions. I can see ESRI continue to fall behind in mapping and gis. They never did get the word out to the public on the virtues of gis. And gis as a career was a TOTAL joke of a dead end. My job and all my friends went to Bangalore India! ESRI now depends almost 100% of government purchase$ and the government users. Tax payer money that is used to buy buggy, outdated, and way overpriced software. I always ask myself, what came first ESRI or gis? Because ONLY gis users use the complex ESRI software, not the public. And only gis data is used and shared with other gis users. The Google kml files made some dent in the public sector, since they are so easy to edit, send and open, but ESRI is still not well known. ESRI basically created a private inner world of elite gis users that are almost totally propped up by gov/municipality departments and tax payers money.I think the one good thing ESRI does have is salesmen and lobbyist$!